NHS leaders have said they “expect” to increase investment in body cameras as part of efforts to retain nurses and other current health service staff

The NHS Long Term Plan, revealed recently by the government arms’-length body NHS England, sets out health service leaders’ future priorities and ambitions for the NHS for the next decade.

Along with overseas recruitment and more domestic training, the plan cited the need to retain more nursing staff who were already working for the health service.

In its chapter on workforce, it highlighted that the leaver rate for nurses was 8% in 2017 – up from 6.8% in 2013.

It also highlighted recently launched schemes to tackle violence, including moves to secure swift prosecutions, better training for staff to deal with violence and body cameras on staff to increase patient safety and care.

“We will invest up to £2m a year from 2019-20 in these programmes to reduce violence, bullying and harassment for our staff. We will invest a further £8m by 2023-24 to pilot the use of body cameras to keep our staff safe,” it added.